


Connected

by Neyiea



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Jealousy, M/M, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, The OG Batfam all know that Bruce is Batman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24343117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyiea/pseuds/Neyiea
Summary: It was only a matter of time before Joker broke out of Arkham.
Relationships: Jeremiah Valeska/Bruce Wayne, Joker (DCU)/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 8
Kudos: 79





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [countessrivers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/countessrivers/gifts).



> It's been almost a year since I wrote post-acid J, which is a tragedy that I shall rectify. This follows along after:  
> [What's In a Name?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18898369)  
> [Pas de Deux](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19043038)  
> 

By a terrible twist of fate, or perhaps by outright disloyalty or ill-mannered scheming, when Joker breaks out of Arkham to dance with his other half once again he makes it almost all the way through his scheme before learning—courtesy of the followers who’d dragged James Gordon’s limp body into the warehouse and tied him to a chair—that Batman’s attention had already settled on someone else for the night.

Tonight, of all nights, Scarecrow had decided to test out his newest batch of toxin at the complete opposite end of the city.

It was one thing for his dear Batsy to play with others, but it was another matter entirely for him to ignore the fact that Joker had broken out of Arkham, had ordered his lackies to cause chaos and destruction, and had taken one of his dear friends hostage with the intent to gruesomely murder him right in front of the mirrored lenses of his eyes. 

He was going to have to start whispering dates into the dark—set times when no other criminal ought to do anything that might steal his spotlight, lest they face his particular wrath—just to be sure that nothing like this happened ever again.

The rage at a wrench being throw into his plans doesn’t burn inside of him, instead it is a gnawing chill that settles deep into the marrow of his bones. He simply must do something about it, but regretfully if he starts murdering his followers every single time that they are the bearers of bad news he imagines he’ll start losing out on even more vital information. Thankfully there is a convenient outlet sitting unconscious in front of him.

“Leave,” he orders, voice rough with his building agitation. His followers flinch away from him. “Watch the sky, and the streets, and the shadows. When you see something suspicious tell me immediately.”

They nod before hastily making their way out into the open air. Batman will come to him eventually. He will. He always will. The knowledge makes his mouth stretch with a smile, makes laughter build up in his throat. He will. Because they are connected, now, in the way that they were meant to be.

Every minute that Joker has to wait, though, is a minute too long. Batman would have already been en route had everything gone according to plan; would have swooped in to put an end to some of the riotous, ruinous gatherings that Joker’s followers were so well-known for, would be such a terrifying force of nature and darkness that none of his lackies would be able to withstand him even if they all set upon him together, would have left their limp bodies behind for the police to deal with while his attention shifted to focus fully on the most important threat. 

Joker had so been looking forward to their reunion. 

He’ll be so upset if, instead of Batman, he has to deal with the bumbling rescue attempts of the GCPD. 

Pistol whipping Gordon back into consciousness doesn’t have nearly the same impact as hitting or being hit by the one who completes him, but the pained gasp—unfortunately muffled by duct-tape—that greets his efforts does mollify him very slightly. He allows himself a soft laugh which reverberates off the walls eerily. Gordon’s eyes—one nearly swollen shut from his futile fight against the three low-lives that Joker had sent out after him—snap open at the sound. 

He’s angry. But he hadn’t been able to conceal the flash of dread when he’d seen Joker standing directly in front of him.

And he was right to be afraid. 

“I could kill you now,” he muses, resting his gun against the vulnerable underside of Gordon’s throat. “Murder you and desecrate your corpse so that none who looked upon it would recognize it without forensic evidence. I could drop your body off at little Barbara Lee’s school and watch her cry and scream when she stumbled upon whatever was left of you.”

Gordon’s heavy exhalations through his nose become faster. His eyes burn, but it is not his rage that Joker really wants to incite. 

He could kill Gordon now, but what was the point of doing so without Batman here to witness it and fall into delightful madness?

He giggles under his breath at the thought and at the idea of what will happen afterwards; rage and screams and tears and violence, the worst and greatest kinds of intimacy. The sort of thing that—although his memory occasionally flickers and stutters and goes dark like an old reel of film—he knows he’d been yearning for eleven years ago. 

Gordon tries to say something. Joker studiously ignores his indistinct threats.

“The only reason I’ll keep you alive any longer than I have to is because of _him_ , you see.” His grin stretches wider as he thinks of him, as he thinks of their history, as he thinks of how deeply connected they are. “My other half in all things,” he croons, longing to behold him once more. He wants to worship him and make him dissolve into rage. Hurt him and be hurt by him. Wants to guide him to an edge that he cannot back away from. Wants to push him over it. “My reason for being.” He drags his gun across the tape over Gordon’s incessant mouth. “The joke to my punchline. And then, once he’s finally here—” he dissolves into laughter, unable to control himself.

Oh, what they’ll do to each other once _he_ is finally here to watch Joker put an end to one of his childhood heroes. 

His heart is already racing. He already feels delightfully, sickeningly warm. He contemplates how hard Batman will try to get away if Joker pins him to the ground and kisses him. He contemplates the possibility of being bitten hard enough to cause bleeding in retaliation. 

He thinks the chances of blood being spilt are in his favour and oh, doesn’t that thought—slick red lips, warm wet kisses, a part of himself painting the inside of Batman’s mouth—make his blood burn so wonderfully hot. 

“You’re lucky, you know, that your death will bring us closer together. The most important thing you’ll ever accomplish in your life will be to cease breathing for good. You’ll see it as you bleed out, the way that we’re connected. You’re lucky,” Joker intones lowly, “to spend your final moments in the presence of soulmates, though I’m sure you won’t realize the true significance of it even after being told. There are so many things that you are ignorant to,” condescension seeps into his tone just like acid green chemicals had once seeped into his mouth. “So many things you do not know. Truths that I’m sure you wouldn’t even be able to comprehend. His secrets.” Joker smiles wide enough that his cheeks ache. “ _Our_ secrets.” 

Gordon struggles against his bonds, nose flaring, eyes locked on Joker’s scarred face. He’s still trying to talk, the simpleton. Perhaps Joker should shut him up by cutting out his tongue. 

Well, there’s an idea. To kill him before Batman could be here to watch would render most of his planned theatrics unprofitable, but that didn’t mean Joker couldn’t start mutilating him before the act which would signal the start of the climax. 

He rips the duct-tape off of Gordon’s face, fingers itching to grasp around the handle of a blade.

“Joker,” Gordon rasps, distaste and blood oozing from his mouth. “Do you really think that I don’t know?”

“You don’t know anything,” Joker tells him with no small amount of contempt. His fingers settle around a familiar handle and he prepares to pry open Gordon’s jaw.

“I’ve known him since he was a boy,” Gordon spits out, and that is enough for Joker’s seeking fingers to pause momentarily. “I was part of his life years before you even entered the picture. We’re family, and I know him better than you ever will.”

“Lies,” Joker hisses. “You’re lying.”

He’s only saying this to buy himself time. 

Gordon looks at him with just as much scorn as Joker feels igniting inside of chest.

“Did you really think that I didn’t know that it was Bruce under the mask,” he asks lowly. “Did you really think that I didn’t realize the second that I—”

“You realizing it or not matters little,” Joker cuts him off with a bitter lie, because he had been absolutely enamored by the belief that he was the only one who’d figured out the secret immediately. To share such a triumph with Gordon leaves a sour taste in his mouth. That Gordon seems to believe that it is Batman, and not Bruce, that acts as the mask which conceals his true self is but a small consolation. “Considering you’ll be dying tonight.” Perhaps cutting out his tongue was not enough. Perhaps that was just the starting point. Perhaps after Joker had left him incapable of anything but screaming he’d start prying off his fingernails one by one while waiting for the only person in the world worth waiting for. “And then it will be _our_ secret again.”

“Do you honestly believe that I’m the only one who knows?”

Joker bares his teeth in a snarl. Gordon doesn’t flinch.

“I’m not the only one who was around to watch Bruce grow up to become the person that he is today, even if he finished his training away from all of us. Just because the rest of Gotham couldn’t comprehend what he’s developed into doesn’t mean—”

“Shut up,” Joker hisses. He pries Gordon’s mouth open, scrabbling to grab at his tongue so that he can keep it still for long enough to cut it out. He’ll destroy Gordon, and Alfred, and everyone else who knew the true identity of Bruce Wayne. He’ll kill them all until the secret is their own again. He’ll cut off fingers and carve out hearts and send them to the rebuilt Wayne Manor in innocuous gift boxes and fantasize about the reaction when each new present is opened.

His knife is a millimeter away from carrying out its most important task to date when the crack of a whip and a sudden feeling of being strangled overcomes his senses.

Selina Kyle, the bitch, of course she would know too. Joker is going to enjoy finally killing her. Joker is going to cleave her pretty little head from her pretty little shoulders.

He drops his knife to grab his gun and he shoots wildly behind himself where the dirty thief must be standing. The whip around his neck tugs and makes his back bow, but he would rather choke to death than be dragged towards her. He hears a muffled cry of pain—music to his ears—and the tight line of the whip slackens enough that he can free himself.

It seems that he’s only grazed her, unfortunately, but—

A glass skylight shatters. A shadowy figure drops in from above. Joker’s heart pounds just as wildly in his chest as it always does when he sees the answer to his life’s question.

“Batsy,” he rasps, delighted with the rapidity of his arrival when he’d expected he’d be stuck toying with Gordon until nearly dawn. His hungry eyes take in every inch of him. It had been too long, too long, too long—

Distracted as he is by the arrival of the most important person on Earth he doesn’t notice Harvey Bullock sneak up behind him until he’s hit by the prongs of a taser. 

He falls to the floor and laughs as his body jerks uncontrollably. His eyes rove around the room, endlessly seeking out _him_.

A barrage of gunshots washes over him; his lackies finally joining in on the fun—they’re late, though. Joker will have to kill one or two, or maybe all, to make a proper example out of them—but he doesn’t let himself look away from the one who will always challenge and fight and make things delightfully difficult for him. He doesn’t look away as the electricity coursing through his body comes to an end and Batman does his best to protect those who have never deserved his attention or affection. 

He doesn’t look away as hands grab him and pull him off the floor, more gunshots ringing in his ears. One grazes his shoulder; friendly fire was such a drag, Joker wishes his hands were steady enough to shoot back at whoever had nicked him.

Before they are parted Joker sees those mirrored lenses dart back to look at him.

He smiles wide enough that his cheeks hurt.

Look for me, he thinks as his vision starts going dark around the edges. I know you want to. Come find me. Come watch me. Come try to stop me.

He will. He always will.

Because they are connected in the way that they are meant to be, and nothing is strong enough to break the links that bind them together. 

When he wakes up—hidden away in a place where no one except for maybe the one who completes him would ever think to look for him—he knows, he knows, he knows…

That he’ll eventually destroy everyone who knows Bruce well enough to be trusted with his _true identity._

He dissolves into another fit of laughter.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you just get the inspiration to write a bit more, y'know? ;) Admittedly there are a few parts in here that hurt my tender heart, but I like how it turned out.

Jim’s face is bruised and his entire body aches—it’s almost enough for him to wonder if he’s starting to get too old for this, but with the world the way that it is he’s not sure if he could bear to stop—when he rings the doorbell to Wayne Manor.

Alfred answers swiftly, takes one look at his black eye, and curses under his breath.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he offers. “And there’s nothing left to do but wait for the swelling to go down. Nothing was permanently damaged.”

Which was a small miracle, all things considered. He was lucky that Selina had been able to make it to the warehouse as fast as she had, otherwise... Well, he dreads to think of what would have happened otherwise. 

Nothing good. Not for anyone.

“Right.” Alfred steps aside so that Jim can enter. “If you say so. Seeing you like this isn’t going to sit well with him, you know.”

He knows. But he hadn’t felt like he could wait. 

“Not seeing me would sit with him even worse, I think,” he says lowly. Alfred’s answering, heavy silence is agreement enough. Jim coming here quickly, even if he was visibly wounded, was the lesser of two evils. 

He hadn’t been able to get a full read on Bruce’s mostly-concealed expression once they’d all relocated to a place where it was far less likely that they’d get shot. His hands had been unflinchingly steady as he’d given Jim and Selina a rudimentary assessment—just enough to ensure that they weren’t about to bleed out on the sidewalk—but the corners of his mouth had been white with tension, and the quality of his voice had been rougher than usual. He’d left shortly after the sound of gunshots had finally died down, with Harvey’s promise to make sure his hurt friends got home safely no doubt making it easier for him to part from their sides, and Jim had had a fleeting moment—seeing the shadowy figure of Batman fearlessly ascend skyward, seeing the unearthly silhouette of him backlit by the dim light of stars—where he could understand why criminals found him so menacing.

If Jim hadn’t known who was under the mask, he might have felt fear upon beholding him. 

But Jim knows Bruce, and he’s part of a very small group—a family, really, is what they are to each other—that know him both in and out of the mask. Jim knows that the injuries of his friends will torment him. Knows it will be better to let him properly see the full extent of the damage so that his mind doesn’t have the opportunity to spiral into thoughts of worst-case scenarios that had managed to be avoided. 

“Last night was rough.” An understatement, which Alfred was fully aware of. Jim had only recently heard the call about Scarecrow showing up to rampage in the Upper East Side when he’d been accosted and dragged to a warehouse on the Dixon Docks. “How’s he holding up?”

Alfred casts a quick glance down an empty hallway before turning his attention back to him. “I won’t lie to you Jim,” he says softly, as if he thinks Bruce might overhear even if he’s rooms away. “He’d be a lot better if Arkham were at least a little more difficult to break out of.”

“Wouldn’t we all,” Jim murmurs.

Wouldn’t they all.

Alfred leads him further into the house, eventually stopping just outside of the doorway leading into the kitchen. The slight pinch between his eyebrows and the downward twist of his mouth is enough evidence of his concern that Jim steels himself before directing his own gaze inside. 

Hair messy, eyes half-open, gazing blearily at what appeared to be a mug of black coffee. It might have been endearing were it not for the slumping of his shoulders, the dark shadows under his eyes, and the fact that it was well past noon. Bruce had been running around all night, wearing himself out with hours upon hours of looking for whatever hideaway Joker had disappeared inside of.

His efforts weren’t for nothing—because every place that Batman had searched and vetoed were locations that Jim could confidently say that the Joker was not holed up in, and even if they didn’t know where he was it was still important to know where he wasn’t—but there were so many spots left for him to conceal himself in, and Bruce always had a tendency to push himself too hard.

Another reason why Jim had come after he’d rolled out of bed post an uneasy sleep to the news that Joker hadn’t been caught and forced back behind bars; Bruce pushed himself even harder when things were personal. 

Jim and Alfred share a somewhat grim, knowing glance, and then Alfred clears his throat.

“Master Bruce, you have a visitor.”

Really, it was a testament to how tired he must be that he hadn’t noticed them standing in the doorway watching him for the handful of seconds that they’d been there. 

Bruce glances up as Jim steps into the kitchen, and he stands almost immediately. He’s so used to wearing an entirely different sort of mask around entirely different sorts of people—even in his own home his instinct is to project his public persona so that he won’t be caught unaware—but Jim knows him far too well to not see the flash of guilt in his eyes that most other people would dismiss as nothing. 

“I’m okay,” Jim says, instinctive. He’s been hurt before, held captive before, had his life threatened before. It shouldn’t be something that anybody had an opportunity to get used to, but it was better for Joker to sink his talons into him as opposed to some helpless civilian who doubtlessly would not have survived the experience. Bruce would have felt even worse, then, with a civilian causality weighing down his conscience. If Jim is sometimes still able to feel Joker’s smooth leather gloves prying his mouth open, if he can envision the flash of his knife when he closes his eyes, well, Bruce certainly didn’t have to know. “I’m okay,” he says, softer, opening his arms with a little bit of hesitancy.

Whenever they’ve seen each other their affectionate gestures have been all handshakes and shoulder-clasps, but Bruce looks rattled, and it makes Jim’s heart ache in a very familiar way.

Bruce looks beyond him for a moment, just for long enough to ascertain that they are truly alone but for the exception of Alfred’s dedicated presence. Then the last lingering traces of his public veneer falls away as he quickly steps towards him, arms gently folding over Jim’s back.

He’s grown up so much. Jim abruptly remembers a time when Bruce didn’t even reach his shoulders and oh, how the tables have turned.

It’s almost enough to put a smile on his face.

Almost.

It’s difficult to smile about anything when the Joker is on the loose and his trail has gone cold.

Jim is part of a very small group that know Bruce in and out of the mask.

He wishes that the group were one person smaller. 

Alfred insists on making Jim a cup of coffee, and pointedly mentions the importance of having more in one’s system than just a cup of coffee, and before Jim can really speculate on the implied conversations which are happening underneath verbalized conversations he finds himself sitting at the table across from Bruce, a slice of frittata and a delicate glass bowl of fruit salad slid in front of him. It’s a thankfully small portion, because Jim had eaten not even two hours ago. The portion Alfred meaningfully places in front of Bruce, however, is not.

Alfred sends a very significant look his way and Jim obediently takes his fork in hand. Bruce, perhaps more out of manners than an actual desire to eat, mirrors him, and that is enough for some of the tension that Alfred has been carrying in his shoulders to ease.

Although it isn’t until Bruce has actually started eating that he cracks a smile for the first time since Jim had come to the front door.

“If you need me, Master Bruce, I’ll be downstairs,” Alfred tells him as he sets one last thing on the table; the coffee that he’d insisted on making for Jim had been the final priority in ensuring that Bruce actually ate something.

“Thank you, Alfred,” Bruce says, his wan face looking a little livelier as he rediscovers his appetite. 

“Thank you, Alfred,” Jim echoes as he raises the mug to his lips.

Alfred doesn’t _say_ thank you, but Jim reads it in his expression all the same before he leaves the kitchen behind. It’s not as if eating Alfred’s cooking is a chore, and frankly Jim would do a variety of much less agreeable things to make sure that Bruce was taken care of.

It’s very, very similar to how he feels about taking care of Barbara. 

It’s undoubtedly very similar to how Alfred feels about taking care of Bruce. 

They eat in silence—Jim doesn’t want any conversation to distract Bruce from the importance of giving his body what it needs to recover, especially considering the looming subject matter—but it isn’t long before they’re both setting their cutlery down. 

Bruce looks at him, eyes assessing his injuries in the same keen way that Lee had when she’d gotten that first glimpse of his face, and he sighs.

“I’m sorry you got caught up in all of that, Jim.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s not because of you,” He’d been expecting something like this, so he’s prepared to speak at length about it if he has to. “This isn’t the first time he’s targeted me, either before or after he—” Fell into acid, played brain-dead, waited and waited for years and years for you to come home. “—changed. And you know as well as I do that you couldn’t have been there any sooner. You can’t be in two places at once, Bruce. That’s what the rest of us are for, you know.” He attempts a smile. Bruce nods in understanding, but his gaze becomes distant.

“Sometimes I wonder,” he says, so soft that he’s almost speaking under his breath, leaning his elbows onto the table and staring down at his empty mug. 

Jim’s small smile fades. It’s not difficult to guess what Bruce is wondering about.

If Jim weren’t still so close to him, would Jim continue to be such an indisputable target for Joker’s schemes? Joker had been angry, so viciously angry, when Jim spoke to him last night—both desperate for more time and full of detest for the wicked man who dared to speak about Bruce as a _soulmate._ Joker had hated everything that he’d had to say, and Jim had felt vindictive delight in reminding him that Jim and Bruce were _family _. That they’d been family long before bridges had blown and the city was enshrouded by darkness. That the secret that Joker was most self-satisfied about was not a secret shared between only two.__

__The delight had disappeared like smoke in the wind when his jaw had been forced open and leather-clad fingers dug into his tongue, but Joker had targeted him before, multiple times, back when his name had still been Jeremiah Valeska. That’s enough for Jim to believe that Joker would continue to single him out, Bruce or no Bruce._ _

__But that’s probably not enough for Bruce._ _

__“I came back to Gotham because I wanted so badly to make this city what it could have been. I wanted to make it a better place. I wanted to be like—” Bruce looks up and locks eyes with him. “You; letting people know that there was still hope even in the darkness. Sometimes I wonder, though, what would have happened if I never came back. Would he…” He trails off, uncertain for one of the first times that Jim has seen ever since he returned to Gotham. He held himself with so much confidence, now; hard-earned and well-deserved. Jim is so, so proud of him. “Would he still be in Arkham?”_ _

__“He would have gotten sick of playing brain-dead eventually, Bruce. If you didn’t come back I think he would’ve started looking for you.” Jim feels awash with dread just considering it. “No one would have been ready for him, and without you to fixate on he’d be running even more wild. We’d never be able to contain him. Without you here, Gotham wouldn’t be able to hold his attention.” Bruce was the only force enthralling enough to both attract and survive Joker's attention for a sustained amount of time. Bruce was the only thing that kept him anchored in one spot instead of spreading like a virus. “He’d bring the whole city down without a second thought.”_ _

__And this time he wouldn’t have ideas about building it up better. Jeremiah Valeska, the architect, was gone for good. This time he would just leave the smouldering ruins behind him._ _

__The Joker would be unleashed upon the whole world, then. It’s a terrifying thought._ _

__Without you to fixate on, he thinks, mind skipping._ _

__Without you, without you, without you—_ _

__“He told me, the night when you both came back, that you were the only thing he loved.”_ _

__He almost wishes he hadn’t said it, because the way Bruce shifts—as if the weight of the entire world is suddenly resting on his shoulders—makes him seem even more weary. He looks like he hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in ages; it’s not enough for just one long night to account for. Bruce has become so strong. He’s grown so much. But every malevolent force in Gotham has grown too, some more insidiously than others._ _

__“When he sees you, when he looks at you, it’s like everything else falls away.” It makes Jim want to hit something, preferably Joker’s face._ _

__“I know.” Bruce presses a hand against his forehead, as if overcome by a sudden headache. “I know.”_ _

__He’s only going to get worse, Jim doesn’t say._ _

__He’s sure Bruce knows that, too._ _

**Author's Note:**

> J's such a possessive mess, I love him.


End file.
